Monday. October 4th. VI.

Attended Prayers and recitation in Topography this morning as usual. After
breakfast also, I attended Mr. Everett’s Lecture. He commenced today with the third
class of those who preceded Homer and under whom Poetry was formed into an entirely
distinct art. We have among these Olen, Thamyris and Tiresias. The
[first] of these was a Lycian by birth and a quotation is
mentioned from Callimachus in which he is mentioned. It is given in the synopsis.
His origin agrees also with what we know already of ancient Lycia, and it’s early
refinement; Pausanias makes him a Hyperborean. In the early times, when men had but
indistinct notions of Geography, they supposed the earth flat and that beyond the
Northern regions was situated the residence of perfect happiness. On this account
they were called Hyperborean. The second, Thamyris, is mentioned by Homer for his
contest with the Muses and is called a Thracian by him, which country seems to have
the priority in advancement. Thamyris was reported to be blind. It is rather a
singular thing that in ancient times almost every man who was distinguished for
talent was said to be blind. If we can consider it worth our inquiring, we should
ascribe it to the known superiority of the blind in memory. He then went on to
consider two prose writers who are said to be authors of the present age of which
we
speak and of whom we have fragments. The first is Sanconiathon. He is called a
native of Berytus by some, others suppose him a Tyrian. He wrote, it is said, in the
language of Carthage or the Punic. According to Eusebius, the writings of this
author were translated into Greek and he has preserved fragments of it. Authors { 355 } have supposed that this Philo Biblius, who was the translator,
compiled these fragments from ancient genuine manuscripts and added interpolations
of his own, which is probably the correct opinion. They contain a version of the
Jewish system of the formation of the world and the Platonist doctrines of the
middle ages, and he made a quotation to illustrate with. These fragments were
translated by Bishop Cumberland and notes were added and a commentary who [which?] attempted to prove that these fragments contained in
themselves a series of profane history for three thousand years from the creation.
His object, it was said, was to prevent the growth of popery. The work is never read
now and it is only to be regretted that he, being so learned a man, should have so
mispent his time. (Poor man, he was only doing what a thousand men are doing every
day. Who shall decide what is [a] wise pursuit or what is not?
“Vanity of vanities all is vanity.”)

The next work is evidently one of a later age but the extravagance of ancient
authors compells us to put it before the Trojan War. This work is the Periplus or
navigation of Hanno, a Carthaginian Prince who made a voyage of discovery beyond the
columns of Hercules. He wrote down what happened and this is the result. It is
supposed that he introduced many of the fables which were ever after told in Greece
and elsewhere. Some have said that he had written a full account of which the work
in two folio pages is an abstract, this latter is all we have. Fabricius however has
supposed that this is all the work and with reason. He is said to have gone with 60
sail and thirty thousand men which in the commencement renders his account
exceedingly improbable, but when we recollect how extremely liable ancient
manuscripts are to be incorrect in numbers, we are prepared to make large allowances
for them, and as there is only a small mark as a distinction between three thousand
and thirty thousand, it is very probable the latter was placed there instead of the
former which is about the correct number. There is some of the marvellous in the
account but not more than we are prepared to find in any work of travellers who are
liable to be incorrectly impressed. When going along the coast of Africa, he says
he
saw some blazing mountains. Now although we have no instance of mountains of that
sort in our day yet we have blazing mountains nearer home which ancients would not
believe. And they may have ceased burning as the volcanic matter became exhausted.
Travellers he will1 had made the Patagonians at
different times twelve, nine and seven feet and a half when it is not probable that
in fact they are much larger than Indians generally. It is impos• { 356 } sible that the theory of Vossius2 as to his being
of the Ante Homeric age. It is improbable as no works have been written at that
early period in prose. This itself is a convincing argument so far, but the
antiquity of the ancient researches in navigation are proved from the knowledge that
the Carthaginians sailed round the strait of the Mediterranean. They knew a course
also by which they sailed in the Boristhenes, thence by a short land carriage, they
got to the Vistula and so they went round through the straits. In these times the
doctrine was that the earth was surrounded by the sea but this they imagined to mean
a river only, conveying a very different meaning from ours to us. There is a passage
in Tacitus in which he mentions that Ambre was obtained in abundance among the
Germans with whom it was most common and who called it Glasium from whence evidently
the derivation of glass.

There is also a question as to the next person, Orpheus, who has some works
ascribed to him as an Ante Homeric author, whether he was really a man, but this was
fully answered in a former lecture. A quotation of Aristotle’s opinion in Cicero was
considered as favouring the assertion that he was not. It has since however been
considered as meaning that the works under his name are not really his and not that
he did not live. Neither Homer nor Hesiod have mentioned him which is accounted for
because he formed the mysteries for which he is distinguished which were not
organized until after them.

Returning home I read Astronomy, attended recitation, and heard some remarks from
Mr. Farrar upon the four new Planets and Herschel.3
A little I might wish to have noted but I have not the time. He merely stated the
way they were named, first called by the Patrons of the different discoveries,
afterwards after they themselves,4 and finally they
obtained the regular names of the ancient mythology. After dinner, I read Paley but
did not get my lesson well although I attempted a great deal. In the Evening, I gave
a drill to my company after which I did not attend Mr. Ticknor’s lecture tonight but
sat down at Otis’s and the Lyceum played a game of whist after which I had some
conversation with Otis and then retired. XI.